There has been a lot of talk about voting, and the lack there-of. I have seen many different ideas used, and suggested to improve voting. Appreciation efforts, incentive efforts, different ideas like SSS, etc. While there are many different opinions and ideas out there that can change voting, still few of them have worked, or have yet to be tried. There are a lot of people still saying that the voting system itself is the problem. While it may be true, it had me wondering what drives people to vote in the first place. As a voter, by leaving a quality RFD that gives valuable feedback to the debaters, you are committing a service (I am obviously excluding vote-bombs). You spent the time and effort into reading a debate that you really didn't have to vote on, but you did anyway. Why? Then I question, if how fancy or different the voting system is, really takes an effect on someone's motivation to vote or not.

This isn't me that saying trying different ideas to improve voting won't help at all. I have seen ideas work short term well, then dwindle off. Honestly I don't think it is an issue with site traffic so much. This site get's plenty of new members, visitors, etc where as if most people were deciding to consistently vote, there would efficiently be no problem.

At the end of the day, I think it is important to understand why a person chooses to vote, so we can take better steps in adding those reasons as motivations for continued voting. So I ask the community: What are the motivations that drive you to vote on debates?

For me personally, I do not vote so frequently. Usually I try to vote at least 1-3 times a week though if I can. My goal lately hasn't been around frequency of votes, but more quality and feedback behind the votes.

But the reason I do vote, is because I know and understand there is a problem with voting. I have been complaining about it for years. The only reason many of my debates have had votes at all, is because I used to spam online and active users with pleas for votes and attention on my debates. I can't really do that anymore, but I also realized that if I myself feel there is a problem with voting, and know that others do as well, why am I just complaining about it and not doing anything to change the process. I try voting on debates that I notice don't get so much attention, because I realize philosophically it is a solution, though it doesn't specifically cater my own needs, the service of voting will still help others. So in a way it is a "what goes around comes around" type of thing. I have had plenty of great quality RFD's for and against me, that the voter must have spent a decent amount of time into. I am thankful for those votes, and want to reciprocate those where I can to others, to maybe inspire others to vote in that way as well.

At 1/23/2014 1:44:12 AM, TUF wrote:While it may be true, it had me wondering what drives people to vote in the first place.

Severe boredom and temporary effort to climb up the list on the voting leaderboard....

As a voter, by leaving a quality RFD that gives valuable feedback to the debaters, you are committing a service (I am obviously excluding vote-bombs). You spent the time and effort into reading a debate that you really didn't have to vote on, but you did anyway. Why?

(Boredom + desire for power) / Laziness > 42, then I vote

At the end of the day, I think it is important to understand why a person chooses to vote, so we can take better steps in adding those reasons as motivations for continued voting. So I ask the community: What are the motivations that drive you to vote on debates?

At 1/23/2014 1:44:12 AM, TUF wrote:While it may be true, it had me wondering what drives people to vote in the first place.

Severe boredom and temporary effort to climb up the list on the voting leaderboard....

As a voter, by leaving a quality RFD that gives valuable feedback to the debaters, you are committing a service (I am obviously excluding vote-bombs). You spent the time and effort into reading a debate that you really didn't have to vote on, but you did anyway. Why?

(Boredom + desire for power) / Laziness > 42, then I vote

At the end of the day, I think it is important to understand why a person chooses to vote, so we can take better steps in adding those reasons as motivations for continued voting. So I ask the community: What are the motivations that drive you to vote on debates?

To be honest, I mainly vote on debates where I find the participant either like-minded or eccentric, perhaps because I treat the voting period as a gateway to be introduced to how people think and express their thoughts.

First of all I'll vote any time I'm going to post something to the vote request thread (seriously, more people requesting votes need to return the favor to other debates in there).

I am oddly less inclined to vote if there is a single forfeited round, as I hate trying to measure how much ground was lost to it.

If a debate was worth reading, I'll vote on it.

I used to be a much more active voter back during the VRB.

If I am heavily biased to the point where I knew who I wanted to vote for before the start, I will only place a non-scoring vote (abstain from giving points, but still provide feedback). ... There are of course the occasional exceptions, such as a FF, or FR (Full Retard).

Unofficial DDO Guide: http://goo.gl...
(It's probably the best help resource here, other than talking to people...)

At 1/24/2014 12:58:29 AM, Ragnar wrote:First of all I'll vote any time I'm going to post something to the vote request thread (seriously, more people requesting votes need to return the favor to other debates in there).

I am oddly less inclined to vote if there is a single forfeited round, as I hate trying to measure how much ground was lost to it.

If a debate was worth reading, I'll vote on it.

I used to be a much more active voter back during the VRB.

If I am heavily biased to the point where I knew who I wanted to vote for before the start, I will only place a non-scoring vote (abstain from giving points, but still provide feedback). ... There are of course the occasional exceptions, such as a FF, or FR (Full Retard).

I actually think you are an awesome voter, and think you meet the above criteria really well.

At 1/23/2014 1:44:12 AM, TUF wrote:You spent the time and effort into reading a debate that you really didn't have to vote on, but you did anyway. Why? Then I question, if how fancy or different the voting system is, really takes an effect on someone's motivation to vote or not.

For me, reading a debate involves 1) the fascination of learning something new, and 2) seeing ideas being subjected to a crucible. This is something that doesn't happen unless you're in an academic setting, and then it's confined to your specific field. You can't get #2 by reading the news or a book, and the debating format is far more preferable to comment threads attached to news articles.

I score the debate because 1) I'd like to see my opinion discussed, which unfortunately does not happen often enough in a civil setting (many times people lob insults, etc) and 2) I also would like to add to the discussion instigated by the debate, and see my RFDs as a sort of gratitude for the time and effort both sides put into a good debate.

Currently score and RFD is inseparable. Given my preferences, if score was separated from RFD, I would probably prioritize leaving the RFD over the score, if I had to choose. I'm not sure if I would ever get any satisfaction from any scoring system.

At 8/9/2013 9:41:24 AM, wrichcirw wrote:
If you are civil with me, I will be civil to you. If you decide to bring unreasonable animosity to bear in a reasonable discussion, then what would you expect other than to get flustered?

At 1/23/2014 1:44:12 AM, TUF wrote:You spent the time and effort into reading a debate that you really didn't have to vote on, but you did anyway. Why? Then I question, if how fancy or different the voting system is, really takes an effect on someone's motivation to vote or not.

For me, reading a debate involves 1) the fascination of learning something new, and 2) seeing ideas being subjected to a crucible. This is something that doesn't happen unless you're in an academic setting, and then it's confined to your specific field. You can't get #2 by reading the news or a book, and the debating format is far more preferable to comment threads attached to news articles.

I score the debate because 1) I'd like to see my opinion discussed, which unfortunately does not happen often enough in a civil setting (many times people lob insults, etc) and 2) I also would like to add to the discussion instigated by the debate, and see my RFDs as a sort of gratitude for the time and effort both sides put into a good debate.

Currently score and RFD is inseparable. Given my preferences, if score was separated from RFD, I would probably prioritize leaving the RFD over the score, if I had to choose. I'm not sure if I would ever get any satisfaction from any scoring system.

So far we have pretty diverse answers. Some do it for learning, some do it for service, some do it for fun.

There may not be a universal motivation method that will work for everyone.

Well, considering the conflict we just had with CVB's on the tournament debate with yraelz and phantom, I am starting to lean back the other way on the issue.

I support this lean! I understand how CVBs evolved, but we can't ask people to vote based only on debate content and then employ counter-voting, a practice that does not consider content, to dilute or reject unpopular or insufficient RFDs. CVBs are definitely hypocritical, probably corrupting, and possibly undermines the inclusivity DDO tries to project.

At the end of the day, I think it is important to understand why a person chooses to vote, so we can take better steps in adding those reasons as motivations for continued voting. So I ask the community: What are the motivations that drive you to vote on debates?

I like giving my opinion and voted a lot when I first joined, but I quickly learned that there is little profit in voting. Some people engage in revenge voting. Many people form alliances, friendships, networks based on reciprocity rather than the quality of arguments. Now I tend to only vote when I'm asked, or if its on the DDO unvoted list, or if I have some confidence in the fair-mindedness of the debaters.

I think it's pretty obvious that most users pay the most attention to the front page of DDO and we've seen how that dynamic leads to a large number of people just trying to create sensational topics with the objective of dominating the front page. We could harness this dynamic by highlighting most voted and least voted debates up front.

I'd like to see a voting system with enough participants that we could actually base points on how many minds were changed by an argument. That is, people would take a poll on an issue with some scaling before reading the debate and then take the same poll again after. The winner of the debate would be determined by which argument created the greater number of shifts towards that opinion.

An option to decline voting for any given debate might let some of the sillier debates proceed without impacting vote stats.

An insta-win in response to forfeit would also shorten a lot of debate times and improve voting stats.

At the end of the day, I think it is important to understand why a person chooses to vote, so we can take better steps in adding those reasons as motivations for continued voting. So I ask the community: What are the motivations that drive you to vote on debates?

I like giving my opinion and voted a lot when I first joined, but I quickly learned that there is little profit in voting. Some people engage in revenge voting. Many people form alliances, friendships, networks based on reciprocity rather than the quality of arguments. Now I tend to only vote when I'm asked, or if its on the DDO unvoted list, or if I have some confidence in the fair-mindedness of the debaters.

I have these same observations. It makes me wonder if switching to just leaving an RFD without a score would be in my best interests, given my own stated observations in a prior comment.

At 8/9/2013 9:41:24 AM, wrichcirw wrote:
If you are civil with me, I will be civil to you. If you decide to bring unreasonable animosity to bear in a reasonable discussion, then what would you expect other than to get flustered?

I think one of the major problems that will always exist with such a voting system is that the voters are people who have an interest in the debate and consequently a position in the debate. Nobody votes on a debate they couldn't read because it was too boring. If the interest is there, then the vote is a potential. Unfortunately this almost always means bias is present. I must salute you for finding a solution in providing incentive to vote on debates of little interest or consequence. It may be only a few times, but once the thinking gets out there that voting objectively without passion for either side=good stuff, good image and glory, we get improvement.

In conclusion, you should pat yourself on the back, alternatively post your address up here on a public site and encourage anyone and everyone to pat your back for you.

At 1/25/2014 5:43:52 AM, Smithereens wrote:I think one of the major problems that will always exist with such a voting system is that the voters are people who have an interest in the debate and consequently a position in the debate. Nobody votes on a debate they couldn't read because it was too boring. If the interest is there, then the vote is a potential. Unfortunately this almost always means bias is present. I must salute you for finding a solution in providing incentive to vote on debates of little interest or consequence. It may be only a few times, but once the thinking gets out there that voting objectively without passion for either side=good stuff, good image and glory, we get improvement.

You're assuming the underlined is even possible to begin with, which IMHO is an erroneous assumption, especially given everything you wrote preceding it - those people are interested because of the innate biases they already hold on the topic.

You've already read my recent debate and have already visited the thread where I elaborate, so I won't repeat here.

In conclusion, you should pat yourself on the back, alternatively post your address up here on a public site and encourage anyone and everyone to pat your back for you.

At 8/9/2013 9:41:24 AM, wrichcirw wrote:
If you are civil with me, I will be civil to you. If you decide to bring unreasonable animosity to bear in a reasonable discussion, then what would you expect other than to get flustered?

What motivates me, as a reader, to vote on debates is the extent to which I find them interesting or if friends of mine on the forum ask me to vote on something.

The way to get me to vote on something is to have the debate be interesting. If the debate is not interesting, then I'm most likely not going to vote. The only caveat to that, however, is that even if a debate is interesting, if there are a lot of factual errors/other problems with the debate I'm going to stop reading and do something else.

There was a time I'd write line-by-line RFD's, but I just don't see the point any more...

At 1/25/2014 5:43:52 AM, Smithereens wrote:I think one of the major problems that will always exist with such a voting system is that the voters are people who have an interest in the debate and consequently a position in the debate. Nobody votes on a debate they couldn't read because it was too boring. If the interest is there, then the vote is a potential. Unfortunately this almost always means bias is present. I must salute you for finding a solution in providing incentive to vote on debates of little interest or consequence. It may be only a few times, but once the thinking gets out there that voting objectively without passion for either side=good stuff, good image and glory, we get improvement.

You're assuming the underlined is even possible to begin with, which IMHO is an erroneous assumption, especially given everything you wrote preceding it - those people are interested because of the innate biases they already hold on the topic.

You've already read my recent debate and have already visited the thread where I elaborate, so I won't repeat here.

Yes I do accept your arguments made as holding water, but I am of the view that voting on a debate in which you have no interest in, for example China is better than japan at basketball will mean that you have minimal bias. Such that bias would be negligible in the voting process.

In conclusion, you should pat yourself on the back, alternatively post your address up here on a public site and encourage anyone and everyone to pat your back for you.

At 1/25/2014 5:43:52 AM, Smithereens wrote:I think one of the major problems that will always exist with such a voting system is that the voters are people who have an interest in the debate and consequently a position in the debate. Nobody votes on a debate they couldn't read because it was too boring. If the interest is there, then the vote is a potential. Unfortunately this almost always means bias is present. I must salute you for finding a solution in providing incentive to vote on debates of little interest or consequence. It may be only a few times, but once the thinking gets out there that voting objectively without passion for either side=good stuff, good image and glory, we get improvement.

You're assuming the underlined is even possible to begin with, which IMHO is an erroneous assumption, especially given everything you wrote preceding it - those people are interested because of the innate biases they already hold on the topic.

You've already read my recent debate and have already visited the thread where I elaborate, so I won't repeat here.

Yes I do accept your arguments made as holding water, but I am of the view that voting on a debate in which you have no interest in, for example China is better than japan at basketball will mean that you have minimal bias. Such that bias would be negligible in the voting process.

Personally, if I was obligated to only vote on debates where I had little interest, I'd quit voting. I think most people would too.

It's extremely difficult to find voters who happen to be interested in a topic, yet have little to no background in it. Furthermore, it's even more difficult to think that such voters would convey much constructive dialogue about the salient points in the debate...it's highly likely the voter would not know what was going on, would struggle with what would be basic terms to the initiated, and would probably find the experience to be overall rather frustrating.

For example, ask a musician who didn't graduate high school and had no interest in medicine to judge a debate about the merits of, let's say, this:

This was on the front page of that website. Hell, I've gone to college and I wouldn't even know where to begin to evaluate a debate on that topic. I'd much rather vote on something else.

In conclusion, you should pat yourself on the back, alternatively post your address up here on a public site and encourage anyone and everyone to pat your back for you.

At 8/9/2013 9:41:24 AM, wrichcirw wrote:
If you are civil with me, I will be civil to you. If you decide to bring unreasonable animosity to bear in a reasonable discussion, then what would you expect other than to get flustered?

At 1/25/2014 5:43:52 AM, Smithereens wrote:I think one of the major problems that will always exist with such a voting system is that the voters are people who have an interest in the debate and consequently a position in the debate. Nobody votes on a debate they couldn't read because it was too boring. If the interest is there, then the vote is a potential. Unfortunately this almost always means bias is present. I must salute you for finding a solution in providing incentive to vote on debates of little interest or consequence. It may be only a few times, but once the thinking gets out there that voting objectively without passion for either side=good stuff, good image and glory, we get improvement.

You're assuming the underlined is even possible to begin with, which IMHO is an erroneous assumption, especially given everything you wrote preceding it - those people are interested because of the innate biases they already hold on the topic.

You've already read my recent debate and have already visited the thread where I elaborate, so I won't repeat here.

Yes I do accept your arguments made as holding water, but I am of the view that voting on a debate in which you have no interest in, for example China is better than japan at basketball will mean that you have minimal bias. Such that bias would be negligible in the voting process.

Personally, if I was obligated to only vote on debates where I had little interest, I'd quit voting. I think most people would too.

It's extremely difficult to find voters who happen to be interested in a topic, yet have little to no background in it. Furthermore, it's even more difficult to think that such voters would convey much constructive dialogue about the salient points in the debate...it's highly likely the voter would not know what was going on, would struggle with what would be basic terms to the initiated, and would probably find the experience to be overall rather frustrating.

For example, ask a musician who didn't graduate high school and had no interest in medicine to judge a debate about the merits of, let's say, this:

This was on the front page of that website. Hell, I've gone to college and I wouldn't even know where to begin to evaluate a debate on that topic. I'd much rather vote on something else.

Granted that reading most ordinary debates on here would be a drain without some sort of incentive, high level debates are exempt. I find it is nearly always the case that reading one of, for example, Roy Latham's debates on a topic I personally don't care about makes the debate interesting to read even though the topic isn't. Similarly, reading debates by Brian Egglestrom or Imabench are quite humerous to read and no bias is incurred in the process.

I think the better your debate, the more objective votes you may receive, otherwise incentive to vote on a debate you have no interest in is likely required, as TUF thought of.

In conclusion, you should pat yourself on the back, alternatively post your address up here on a public site and encourage anyone and everyone to pat your back for you.

i vote:1. forfeit=easy conduct points2. less than 100 characters (because what movie would have so many main characters)3. everyone can agree that one side will definitely win4. more than a 100 character=effort points where both sides did a job well done5. i hate the other person (jk)6. and he stole my balloon